


While our lights flicker in the dark

by creativwritingmind



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: F/M, a little weired, new take on my writing, no happy ending, very dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 02:18:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13157133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creativwritingmind/pseuds/creativwritingmind





	While our lights flicker in the dark

Cold smoke lingering in the air, imitating the slow wobbly movements of mist, being sucked out through the open door and window at the other side of the room. I don't pay attention to it anymore, although it has a kind of beauty, the way it glistens in the changing lights...Rob has forgotten to turn them off again, not that it matters. He forgets it every night and every time it's me putting them to sleep, as I do with all of this, the glasses, the sweat, the shallow promises given inside these walls that mock to be a safeplace for the broken and the wicked. It's been a long night, and a particular rough one, I can see it in Melody's tired stare when she slumbs down a few notes on the bar, telling me it's her fee for today. Of course her name's not Melody, but I don't even think she remembers her real name herself. In here no one is who he used to be. And it's good that way. 

I don't even try to smalltalk to her, I just pour her a shot that will keep her warm on the way home. It's getting cold outside there in Columbus, and she won't have much fire left in her after she burned herself for her custumors all night. The girl nods and drowns the shot as if it is nothing, she's used to it, way more then she should at that age, but that's ok, it's just another tool to survive this kind of life, this greedy sort of existence. It could be worse for her, I tell myself, as I watch her walk out while I put away the glasses, at least in here she's fairly safe. Rob would never let one of the girls get hurt in his house...not if they aren't payed well enough for it. I don't turn when I hear footsteps behind me, although my hands wander absently to the gun hidden under the bar, it's late enough, or early, depends on how you want to see it, to be alarmed. "We're closed already." I throw above my shoulder, not bothering to turn around. If he's there to mug me words won't matter anyway, but of course, he isn't. He's presumable just lonely, or in need of his drug, whatever it is, I don't care. I've stopped caring about people a long time ago. 

"I won't take long." he answers, and I'm surprised, enough to actually give him a glance. He sounds young, raspy, a little too defeated for that time of the night. "Just give me something to forget." It may be a clichè line, but for him, it's exactly what he needs, I realize the moment I recognise his face. There's no irony in the fact that someone like him ends up here, life's just like that, and it's no sympathy why I pull out a glass and fill it with the strongest stuff I find. It's self defence. I don't want to get caught up in his story. I don't have enough heart or soul left for something like that. Watching him drown the liquid silently I refill without questioning it. He's already on a higher dose for sure. The way he copes is nothing new at least, first trying to drink at home, but not being able to stand the lonliness there. Roaming the streets, getting another one here and there, but feeling even more lonely the deeper into the crowds he gets. There's no point in trying to find someone that would understand his pain, because there's simply no one who can, the only option is to kill it, that's the part I get. I do it myself. Alcohol is just not my choice of drug. 

Time creeps on and I know he'd make an attempt to leave if I really wanted him to. But he feels that I don't rush, as I end my work quietly, give a last fill to his glass and watch carefully how his adams apple popps when he swallows, the burning feeling in his throat ignored, he's probably not even conncected to his body in any way. I take the glass from him, put it in the dishwasher, switch it on. The mechanic sound feels the void between us, a whisper between the dead, and we stare at each other, only long enough to come across. I pull my sweater closer when we step outside, when I slide the keys into my pocket after I closed up the bar. The wind has picked up, but the snow is yet to come, I can smell it in the crispy, newborn air. My reversed sunset already starts to lighten the sky, in a few hours she will be up, warming the world. There will be nothing left of it when I get up again. It will be just as cold and pointless as it aready is. 

Hesitation is not something I poder when he opens his cars door for me. Simply sliding inside, letting my head rest on the comfortable seat, I watch him round the car, his movements fluid, dragged, like if he has to fight to move at all. It's hard to live in a functioning body with a dead mind, and he hasn't managed the art of hiding that yet. He will though, he has to. I had no choice and so won't he. The radio is starting to play when he switches the engine on, puts the heater on high drive and the happy popsound on mute. "Where to?" It's more a obligated phrase then a real question, he could take me anywhere from here and I wouldn't mind. I've never got roots, so I don't care where I end up by the end of the day. "You don't want to be alone." I say, not as an answer or a provocation. It's a sign I have understood. He's not going to ask me, he hadn't even planned to do this. But he has reached a point of desperation where simple human contact is so far away that he can't think of any other way anymore. Realising this the same moment as I do he shrugges, starring out the side window, checking his own reflection in the side mirror. 

He's a mess, dark circles painting his eyes, a scruff that has seen better days. He's thin, worn out, sick looking too. I guess he hasn't eaten or slept enough in days, and he never will again. It has taken him too far to watch her die, and he can't come back from that, no matter how hard everyone insists he should. We don't talk anymore after he rips himself out of his trance and starts the car. It's a longer drive, of course, I remember I heared he moved out of the city a few years ago. Yet he never left it completly, only a half hour was all he could bear, but it was needed, back then, when people used to chase them. Nowadays, it's his hideout for a different reason. It's not about not being seen anymore. It's about not want to see. Maybe the big, heavy metal gate should be impressive, for me it looks like just another frontier he has set up, as it slides to the side. I study his concentrated face, the way his fingers wrap aound the controll, as if it is a lifeline. There must be not much left in his hands, they took a lot away from him after he snapped, they even fought to take away his freedom. He has won that one, but it left him even more empty I guess, he's alone now, has made everyone else his enemy. 

Waiting for him to open my door I observe the house when we stop. It's simpler then I thought, big, yes, but normal in a strange kind of way. Peaceful would be a good description, if I wouldn't feel his tension when he opens the door, flicks on the lights. A big hallway, a warm welcome, golden light and pictures of better days on the walls. They can't cover the fact that there's a drop in emotional temperature once we walk past this scene. Further down the rooms this place is a mirror of his insides, messy, not disgusting, but he visibly doesn't care all too much anymore. I've seen worse, even have been worse for a while. It's more the nature of things he seems to throw around carelessly that strikes me as sad then the fact that he does. There's a pile of papers strawn across his piano, molding cups of something on it, there's the hint of his ukulele under a pile of clothes on the floor. Books, Literature, heedless placed just where he lost interest in them. There's no delight in this for him anymore. He's lost his cause and has failed in finding a new one. 

I wait for him to sit down on the couch, the only clear spot in here, and pull up a bottle. There's no offer to sit beside him, nor does he hand me the wine, he's sensed I'm not into this. Instead he clears a spot on the table for me, turning out to be the perfect glass surface. The way I rub my nose sometimes, or that I snort a lot, gives me away to people who know my demon. Of course he has seen it somewhen, in his old life, when all he had to care about was not to get too boring for the people to watch. My handles are experienced, I don't need to look at what I do, I preferre to look at him instead. He holds my gaze, the whole time, until I turn to rummage my bag, find a tube. Taking a swig the same time I inhale white fire, he sighs when I'm done, when I throw my head back and brush my nose clean. My lungs deflate, the same time his do, and there's a moment of content for the both of us, wenn my high settles in and his drunkness finally reaches the state of comfortable numbing. 

I get that he doesn't want to touch me, still he's needing my touch. He doesn't move an inch when I get him off, it's his body needing this, his mind stays blank, no sound, no twitch, just the dull noise of my ministrations in the dark. When I'm done with him I lay myself another line, not bothering to flush my mouth from the salty taste. In fact I'm surprised I do taste anything at all. He just opens another bottle. The stuff is supposed to keep me awake, but in fact it just triggers my heartbeat. I'm always tired, always asleep fast, as soon as I hit a flat surface. Blacking out is not new to me, so I don't panic when I come to myself again suddenly, escaping the dark. The sun is blinding through half drawn curtains, it's early in my space of time. Turning slowly I ignore the scratch of the couches fabric against the bare skin where my shirt rides high. I figured he doesn't use his bedroom anymore, but there must be plenty of others. Still I find him on the floor, right beside me, and it dawns me that he must seldom leave this room. It's all of his world in here, the chaos, the reminders of how it used to be. But there's not a single picture, a little trace of her to be found. This place is not safe. It just gives him the illusion of being secure. 

Carefully climbing beyond him I don't bother to wake him up. His hangover will be worse enough later, there's no need to take the little peace he found away from him. I do place the blanket he has thrown over me over his form now though. We may both be frozen inside, but that doesn't mean we need to be cold towards others. Cautious, still with determination I find my way then. There's a bathroom, there's a shower, I like the sound of the water against the crystal glass around me. The soaps might smell like her, that's why I don't touch them, for now the natures clear scent is all I need to make me feel sober. Gross clothes soaked in the sink I put on the first thing I find when I roam further through the house, it's a worn shirt, it smells like him and I decide to like that. Although he's alone there must be someone looking out for him I learn, as soon as I find myself in the kitchen. There's a glass of water on the counter, some neatly placed painkillers beside. The fridge is filled, I doubt he did that, and he didn't clean this room for sure. It's too clinical, too cared for to carry his vibe. 

When he finally get's up, I've already treated myself the third coffee, called Rob and told him I'll not be working tonight. This is complicated, I can't leave him there, and he doesn't want me to leave. He's not startled by my presence, but I get that he's way too sober to deal with it, so I add a little more liqour to his mug and push it beside the glass of water still waiting for him there alongside the pills. He grunts, grabs the white dropplets and throws them inside his mouth, drowns them with the coffee, ignores the water. We're settled across each other, his front leaning on his hands while his eyes still adjust to the daylight, which is to no avail, it will fade in a few hours anyway. Finishing my coffee I place the mug in the sink, walk over, close my hand around his wrist. He does flinch, I've expected that, but he doesn't resist when I drag him along, back to the bath, run him a shower. It's not that he would reek, not too bad at least, but I want him to get that clean feeling, just a little bit of sobering up. In the end he has not deserved to live this way, even if he thinks it's exactly that. I know why he didn't choose to die. It would be sending the parts out, going the easy way. It would have ended this suffering, this slo-mo selfdestruction. 

Taking his time, it seems the warm water melts a little of the wall he has build, a tiny little crack in it as he sighs and let's his head fall foreward, the spray hitting his strained neck. None of us feels much these days, and so we cherish the little moments we do. I leave him there, for a while, to roam his space further. The good spirit looking after him must have done the laundry too, I find a pile of it in a basket at the end of the steps. There's coldness leaking from the rooms above, they are not part of him anymore, they belong to a ghost now. There's not much to pick from, I guess he has given up on buying something new, it's just the same plain black shirts and pants over and over so I take what I get, change myself too. His clothes don't even look misplaced on me, he has gotten that thin, he has never been all too much bodyly presence anyway. When I return he's ready, sitting on the edge of the tube, wrapped in one of his towels, but not dried at all. I follow the line of droplets on his skin for a while, place the clothes in a dry spot, quietly walk him by. I'm not here to talk, he hasn't kept me for that. To be fair, I don't think he knows why he keeps me at all. There's no sign of her here, although I have expected it, a toothbrush, or a parfume or anything forgotten, but he has cleaned his enviornment from all the little reminders, he needed it to stay alive. It must be hard to trying to forget her, everyday from a new, everytime his mind comes clear and if it is for just a few seconds.

My hands are steady when I take the blades and put them together. By now I've still got enough to keep me high, and it will last for a while, I'm always prepared when it comes down to the only thing that keeps me going. Closing his eyes he exposes his neck to me, we both know he has nothing to fear, I won't be his death. I'm not hurrying, I take my time, black dots of rough stubble falling gently down on his shoulder, gliding off with the dropplets his hair still gives. There's a certain calm to this, it serves us both well. Broken souls may know how to connect with each other, but broken minds know it's not even possible to do so. We simply exist beside each other, like in different dimensions, my presence has no liability to him. Still i reach out and across the many worlds between us, to take a hold of what's left of him and trying to glue it together. It takes someone like me to do that. That's why life decided to put us here. My thumb follows the line of clean shaven skin, as soon as the blade leaves it, making sure there was no harm done. I variate the pressures, he likes being on the edge and I'm capeable of knowing what is too much, so we play with this for a while. 

The tiny little hairs down his neck take the most of the time, as it's delicious to see how his skin rises in small craters when I lean in and my breath touches it. Only small controlled movements from my side, but he pushes against me, his throat touching the blade almost too hard. Sounds are useless between us so I tangle my free hand in his hair, set my grip firm enough to not let it slip and silently go on where I left. He doesn't struggle a second time, instead he slips away in a headspace. I exhale as I feel him going down, settling into a spot where there's nothing but silence. He looks better when I'm done, although it's just another mask for him to wear. His insides have gotten so ugly, he can't express them anymore, not in lyrics, not in words. In silent commitment we meet up at the couch again then. I snort, he drinks, an ongoing circle that spirals us both downwards...still it feels a little better with another Goner by your side. Sometimes, I like the silence, but this time, I need something to occupy my brain once it's in high gear. Switching on the TV I can feel his reluctance, but he says nothing, keeps on drinking, one swing at a time. At this pace he'll be on the bottom of this bottle before the hour even ends. It's going on too long for him to just lay off. His shaking gets better the more alcohol he pushes into his veins.

We watch a reality soap about an unbelieveable fat woman for a while. She says she wants to change her life, draggs her wobbly bag of a body through sweaty exercises. She's trying to eat healthy, but can't resist the cake in the last scene of this weeks episode. It's a cliffhanger, we never actually get to see if she eats it, and it naggs me, I would have wanted to see her fall. I like it when people dissapoint themselves. It's the only honest moment in most of their lifes. He get's up to pee, once or twice, I don't really keep track of it, melt into the cushions behind me. The stuff I have is good, it's not too fast, it's more psychodelic, and I count the colourful dots on the white wall. Still I get bored, my strained, overdosed nervs needing some action. "Want a blow?" I ask, out of nowhere, and I startle him, probably more because of the volue of my voice then the words itself. Turning his head, adjusting his eyes from the blank space he had fixed them on, he starres at me, takes me in. It's the first time he really looks at me, and I get that this is what he does, he does only recognise people if they stick around long enough without judging him in his misery. "You shouldn't do that." he says, dry, still with a determined tone. It's no phrase, it's his honest opinion, I appreciate that he thinks of me that way. But he doesn't get it, noone does. He just may be able to learn. "It's ok. I like being used." That's all the conversation we have all day. He goes back to ignoring me, and I stop to offer. Still my energy needs to be worked off, so I stroll to the kitchen. It has been a while since I cooked, and neither of us is hungry, but it's something to do, and it's sapid, I can still remember a few skills someone told me somewhen, but I don't know anymore who it has been. The spaghetti slowly cooling down in front of us though, when I set them on the table that he cleared enough to leave space for the plates. The rerun of the fat-woman-show is playing at the screen. Nothing changes, only that I fall asleep knowingly and with my head on his shoulder this time. 

Time morphs around us. Between visions of bottles and lines and blackout-naps I find myself lying on my back, starring at a crack in the ceiling. He's gone, I've no idea where to, he just stood up somewhen and left, keys tingling when he locked the door. There had been no point in telling him he shouldn't drive while being that intoxiated, I will do though when he returns. We should remind each other of our deathly habbits, it seems. The crack is beautiful, it has a unique shape, spreads in different little branches to the middle of the room. Trees where ever I look, on the ceicling, out the window, hung up as pictures on the wall. He's obsessed with these things, I guess, or he was, it's hard to tell how much of him still resonates, and what parts he put to infernal sleep already. I let the magnetism of the situation pull me up, my upper body forcing itself in an upright position. Unsteady legs, a shaky hand seaking for hold. Sooner or later I will have to leave, to get some of my medicine, but for now I can handle it. Conquering his space like a new found land I find myself at the bottom of the steps soon, the strange chill flowing over me again. I can almost hear it whisper...her whisper up there. Step by step, cracking the surface I rise up the stairs, passing by pictures of better days, slowly getting dusty. The upper hallway isn't all too dark, the moon is full tonight and shines through the windows. This could be a fucked up horror trip if I hadn't known how to push my anxiety down. It's weired up here, even weirder then in the chaos down there, mirroring his soul.

It's like she has just left, or never, which is even worse in it's own kind of way. A cruel museum of a gone existence, parts of her all over the rooms. A brush, blonde, lost hair tangled, resting on the sink, beside the towel he may have used to dry her off, when she had been too weak to do it herself. The wheelchair, with her blanket still in it , maybe carrying her scent even, or maybe it has faded, replaced by the mouldy stench of time. I don't enter the bedroom, I stop at the door, it's a sacred place, it's sealed just by a promise, I can feel it in the thick, humid air. Never will he change this room, not to the day he'll die, he has persuaded himself that he can keep her that way, close, just upstairs, that he just needs to get up here and ly down on this sheets to be close to her. Pretending has gotten his favourite reality. He knows the bed is cold between the tubes and the resting machines, but he'd totally convince himself she's up here, if he'd ever be sober enough to doubt. I've seen enough of the sadness, I creep back again, to my spot at the couch, lay down, glance up to the ceiling. My head hurts, I feel dizzy. Tonight I will have to leave, for a while at least, and I hate to know that I will long to come back. 

Another shift, another jump in time. I loose track of it sometimes, when my brain just shuts off. It's the moments I love the most, whe it feels like I'm almost there, almost sleeping in peace forever. My thoughts flicker back into my head though when a bag is sat before my eyes, when he slumpes down beside me, not hiding how done he is with the world from only that little trip into it. I lean foreward, ignoring that he watches me, follows my every move. Pills, meds over meds, some for pain, some for happyness, some for just no other use then being mixed up to a trippy cocktail. I raise my brow, now answering his gaze. He's specific, although calm, when he tells me. "You'll not go back there." It's a statement, one that he will not turn off from, and I sit back, crossing my arms before my chest. Handing over control is not my intention, he needs to learn that, although it's temtping to do so. My demanour is nothing that seems to throw him off, he grabs a few of the pills he bought and popps them himself, like...he knows what he's doing. Legal highs are even more dangerous as my demons though. They are clean, build to keep alive. At least my demon holds the possibility to die on a bad mixture.

There must have been a relaxant in them, he shifts, isn't that rigid anymore. I don't welcome his touch, when he sighs and lies down, when his head is in my lap and my hand burried under his hair. We've both gone so long without this, we shouldn't go back to it now. It broke us, drove us insane and the only thing saving us was shutting off all emotion. I don't want to feel again. I don't want my stomach to flip under his breath. The shirt is getting slighty damp where he breathes into me, clinging to the outline of my belly button. Tenderness is not something that should take us over, so I don't pet his hair, I let him rest, quiet, unpressuring, his soft huffs soaking the fabric more and more. There's the third rerun of Moby Dick on the screen, I turn her off, I feel pity for her. She won't make it till the end of the season, her fat-clumbed heart will stop beating by episode eight. Not drunk enough to be asleep he fakes and I buy it, just to keep things the way they are between us. No emotions, no feelings, no boundaries, just this. Presence and company, in the deepest kind of way. My hands are shaking. Another round of pills will have to do. 

We don't leave the house today and we won't leave it tomorrow. I hear someone at the front door, rummaging in the kitchen later, but neither of us gets up to look. He mights know who it is, the payed good angel, keeping at least a part of his live in check. She get's a well thought out loan, I'm sure, as she doesn't even check up on him. I guess he instructed her to not do so. If he dies anywhere in the process, he doesn't want to be saved. There where less bottles today then yesterday, I guess mixing meds with alcohol is still kind of a frontier for him. It's dumb to find that good, it's dangerous to be kind of glad he's not walking that line, and I curse myself for it. He should mean nothing to me, he's a stranger, even after the past 48 hours, he hasn't even told me his name or asked for mine. Still I miss the warmth, the wetness, when he rises and leaves me, to go to the bathroom and I hear him run a bat there. I've no task to do and he's right, I will not go back there. Robs bar was too shitty for me anyway. I'm a class girl, I prefere the real deep places. Rob had morals. That's not something I like. 

I guess the pills made me sleepy, I have no idea when I broke away. All I know is I wake up to loud crashing, and yells, and I need to fight my way through a strong haze around me. My mind is fogged, dulled, life is loosing it's edges. It's the anti-depressant hitting, I guess, distracted for a moment before I return my focus to the loud noise. I follow it, even through my confusion it's easy to pinpoint, and I stop, one hand on the doorframe, and don't react, as I feel it would be lethal to do so right now. Whatever it was that triggered him, a dream, a thought, a memory, it has hit him hard. Plates flying through the air like an all planet invasion of little green men, smashing at the walls and leaving dents, destroying the perfect white surface just like this all is destroying him. He screams, he doesn't even know what to yell, he just does, melodic in a way, a dark beauty to it. If he wouldn't be crying so hard I could mistake him for aggressive, but he's in pain, in the one that craves a tiny little hole into your heart, and settles there, unable to be removed, infecting everything lying around. 

I don't flinch when a cup splinters directly beside me, I stay still, wait for the moment, the one I know that will come. When he runs out on things to throw he surrenders, driving his fists down at the counters plate, letting his head hang low, sobbing in rage and hurt, blind of anger like a wounded animal. My feet feel cold and sticky against the tiled floor, they leave Marks on the polished grey. Shoulders rising and falling hard he doesn't turn to me, he stays where he is, pumping air, veins on his temple highlightened and pulsating. He needs to aim his fury against something or it will tear him appart. I know how to be a target. I've done this so many times I lost count of it. Fluid movements, I go down on my knees before him, grab his hand in the process, guide it to my hair. Quick, expertly I remove what seperates us, do what I know best. He's good at heart, I thank the universe for that, he does hold back, does controll himself as long as he can. But I'm mercyless, I take him appart, strip him off his layers, tease him until he hardens his grip, until instead of me playing him he starts to use me and I just relax may face and let him do as he whishes. 

This breaks part of his old self in halfs I suppose. He can't hold this up for all to long, he has to get me on eye level, so it is at least a little less degrading in his set of rules. Harsh hands gripping my hips, raising them to the counter, I spread my legs, I'm not more then a tool and I know how to work it. He's fast, hard, unforgiving. Purple shades on my skin, a manifastation of how hard he holds on to dear life when he works me over, when the primal instincts take his control from him. I hold on to his shoulders, dig my nails inside, there's a little blood under them, little pieces of his skin, pealed DNA. Grunting breath alongside my ear I can taste how much he hates himself for this, how he will punish the greedy, little voice inside his head that told him to do this, to let want and need take over. The moments he comes he's off of me, stumbeling to the kitchen sink across the room, heaving a few times, before sliding down to the floor defeated. I stay where he left, my legs spread, warm liquid spilling out of me, his sweat slowly drying alongside my skin. "I promised..." he starts, but doesn't end the sentence, his hand flys through the air as if he tries to explain with a gesture, a wicked smile, a sob, too much, too overwhelming, all at once. "You didn't cheat on her." I say, dry, my voice sounds used although I haven't really spoke in days. "She's dead. You will never fuck her again." 

I try to drown myself in the bathtube when he's asleep next time. After our kitchen encounter he said he needed time to think, we both knew it just meant he was drinking himself into obvilion elsewhere. Experimenting while he was away I've found the right mixture of meds now. It's a pleasant high, it let's me think more clear, and I quickly get why I refused to do this for such a long time. My mind is dangerous. And I am dangerous for myself. Staying under water as long as possible, till my lungs hurt and my muscles panic, strain to push me into the air, I try to fathom the reason why I stay. Maybe I hope he'll kill me, sooner or later, in one of his outbursts. Maybe I'm sick of people who hold back and he doesn't hide his horror from me. I go under another time, feel my hair rise around me, softly parting in strains, swinging in the water. There's a point where I nearly breath water, and one day, I will push through it. But for now I get up again, a wheezing sound accomponying the flow of air into my system, my eyes slowly celaring as the water drops off my face. 

He sits there, on the floor, in the same black Jeans, the same black shirt I've ever seen him in. Technically it might be a different one, I acknowledged that he does change and shower now, but metaphorically he doesn't change at all. If I'd drown he wouldn't help me. He would be sorry, of course, but he wouldn't raise a finger to pull me up. That's why I trust him, way more then I should. We stare, at nothing in particular, at each others eyes and fronts and noses and lips. Presence, another soul, that's what we are. And it is so perfect. It's just what the both of us need. He leaves before I get out, as if he senses when the water gets cold. I take my time, I use his razor to clear my legs, my pits, I even brush my hair. Our initial spot is where I find him. We've changed the channel somewhere around noon, it's some old comedy show flickering over the screen now. No pills for him today, he's back to drinking, and I bray mine, form a line, drag it up through my nose. It displeases him, but he doesn't berate me. My head starts to prickle, my insides turn to dust. I concentrate on his form, on the spirited line of his neck, and I reach out, in need to touch something living. I trace his throat, he swallows, accepting this first contact, made outside everything other then shere sexual drive. 

Carefull, like a kid wading thorough a water full of snakes I roam, to his face, trace his features. There's much more I learn about him when he closes his eyes and let me do then he could have ever told me. "You can't run dry on tears!" my mother used to say. She was so wrong, awefully wrong. There's no power left in him to cry, the sadness he radiates is deeper, it has sunken into his bones, took over his skull until it was him existing in a stranger body, a vessel for something dark that slowly pushed him away. It just increases when I let my lips follow my hands, not kissing, just touching his skin, warm and rough where his whisker slowly grows back. There's a pounding heart under my palm, suddenly, I spread my fingers to feel it better, it pulsates against the center of my hand and I'm so drawn in by it's beat that I adjust my own to it. Our kiss is not a kiss for real, it's a mutual share of breath, air sucked between lips and teeth and tongues, slow, gentle exhales, hungry indrafts, hands that find hair. 

He's moving now, or am I, I can't tell, but it's me that ends up lying, watching him lean over me, his brows knitted his face an expression of regret for what he is about to do. This bond will keep him prisonor forever, but I'm not willing to give up so easy, at least I should try to set him free. We've both no future left, so why not embrace the present, and I tugg him down, towards my lips, and we collide, burning suns melting into each other. We speak the same language, from then on. There's way more awakeness on his part this time, he doesn't stear blindly, he's calm, and it's making me nervous. He takes over our kiss so easily, and I don't know myself anymore, I want to follow him suddenly. Sooner then I realize what he's doing there's a mark on my neck, another one on my shoulder, and I arch into the bite, I ease into the calming touch of his tongue after he bruised the skin there. It makes me bolder, willing to do more for him too. I'm the first to slide my hands under his shirt, when I pull into action and place myself on his lap, never letting his mouth go. Following the small bumps of his spine with my fingertips I reach his neck and close a hand around it, thightning it in time with his hands grabbing my hips, pulling me close into him. 

The rough hard material of his jeans against my naked thigths, it's a seduction I can't stay away from, so I push my hips down on him once, twice, and open my mouth wider when his hands glide up my front, cradle my breast. For a second it feels like we're really back in our bodies, but this is just fiction, we just paint scars with blue, I suck his lip, he pushes up against me. Fingers closing around the back of his shirt I tug, slide it off his arms, my hands finding a secure spot on his shoulders. Bold lines, crossing his chest, a remain of what he believed in, he removed it's meaning in his own way with the incisions he added there. Pulling him down, down, down to me I level our existence, eyes locking more then lips do, for a breath, there's a flicker in my soul somewhere, but it's not light enought to break through the dark. He needs to feel skin, a prove that he's still alive, that he's not rotting corpse already, I comply, I'm vulnarable now beside him. Attending to make us equal again I want to reach down, remove his pants, but he catches my wrist, doesn't let me move further. Instead he travels, his free hand up and down the back of my thigh, his tongue along my ear, and we're both highsensed and overdosed, and drunk and crazed and going nowhere. 

It doesn't matter if it's me, or him, or both of us trembling, we do, when we sink further into emotions we shouldn't have, not for us. We slow down, kisses turning into conversations of lips, carefull and exploring. The basical need is still not love, and I feel exactly that it will never be. I've never learned to do that...love somebody, and he will never be able to love again. But we can surrogate to something, to a part that eases the pain, or maybe just speeds us up on the road to hell. I damn myself as I whimper, when he breaks through the border, when he shifts our balance from me to him, quietly takes me over. Warm waves of breath gliding down my neck, the curve of my shoulders. Hands sliding down the back of my thights and up on the inside. Being wet and ready is something I learned very early in life, it eases some problems, the ones you don't really choose yourself. He gaspes in surprise though, I guess he hasn't expected his fingers gliding in so easily, his palm getting slicked, there's a cold spot between the warm skin of his digits and I realise what the cool metal is. Reaching down I remove his hand, he watches me puzzled, and I make sure he locks with my eyes, so I can catch him. Still he's nearly breaking when I remove the ring, he has worn it for so long he has forgotten it is there, but he would have reminded tomorrow, and I wanna spare him that pain. 

Carefully placing it aside, pushing it into one of the pillboxes I add it to our most crucial posessions, so we won't loose it, that's not my intention. I can see that he's lost when I look back at him, his eyes water, the memory too visible. Crashing him in a wave I try to errase it, instantly, for now. Colliding with his body I send us both to the floor him now being under me, my naked form pressed flush against his still half clothed one. My hands are quicker then his this time, I don't bother to keep things slow. Once I've undressed him I'm down, my lips locked around his flesh like they'd find a home there. There's a change in the way I take him though. It's not about only releasing his pressure, and I'm worried, I'm thinking too much, while my tongue glides up and down his length, blue veins filling and swelling the weak skin. Catching myself unprepared as I run my thumbs soothingly along his hipbones, marks of the punishment he puts himself into. There are always rules with customours, and I'm about to break all of them. I wish he'd never made a sound, because the moment he does I'm addicted to it, even more then to the white powder, tickling where it sticks to the hairs in my nose. It's a soft expression for a word that doesn't exist, for a feeling that is best described with finding something beautiful that was forgotten for a long time by chance. 

There's a flash running over my body, tainting my skin in bumps, I sigh in the back of my throat, let him glide deeper. Time has frozen for now, and we both don't feel like we're rushing, although there is rythm to it. We don't stand as still as the world around us, he moves his hand in my hair, then ruther down, around my neck, his thumb pressing behind my ear, soft, small streaks there, or pressure, depending on if he wants me to slow down or go harder. I learn him, I'm an eager student and by time he let's his hand fall to my shoulder and bends his head back, no need to lecture me further, I'm an autodidact to his pleasure. I keep him on the edge though, I slow before he can end, and taste my way along his lines, teasing his nipples, nosing his throat, tilting his chin into a kiss with my lips. How I wish his hands could hold me together, the way the thighten around me, how I wish we could be more then this. Letting my legs fall open they slide along his hips, we fit together like pieces of eternity, his air cutting off when my hips meet his. He moves me, with his hands on my body, helps my little weight to rise and fall, but his eyes are closed again, his mind in another dimension. It's not my name he hectically whispers, not my texture he pretents to hold under his fingers. 

It's heartbreaking and I nearly stop us, it's just a new way to torture himself, but then I bethink how he means nothing to me. He's just another guy, and he won't be the last, and as he's one of the better ones I can at least get my turn out of this. I push his hand down, command him to rub me raw. None of us lasts long, we both can't give more then our worn out bodies are ready to perform. It was a mistake to stay here, I understand, the moment he tumbles over the edge, when I visible see all warmth he had left, all his spirit leaving his body, with all the hot fluids spilling, salt in all of them, on his face, deep in myself. Until now, I've never witnessed the moment a person died, and it's strangely calm, how he hands life over to fate. By time we're over, his body is all that holds something like and existence, it's breathing and trembling, a hollow shell without any spark in it. Inside the coexistence to the reality he has built himself he has perceived how hopeless it really is, how he never will let her go, how she always will be in his hands, his minds, his skull, his hair, his teeth, his everything. Digged deep into his DNA, inerasable. I only wait to catch my breath before I push my self off of him, stickyness running down my thights. He burries his face in his hands and I turn away, pick whatever I find in the process. This is not how I want to remember him, this is not how the world should remember him at least. It's not what he deserves. 

There's a small light on the outside, lightning up the mist, a real one this time, and it's not interstratified with colours and not holding shallow promises. It's cold, as cold as his body will be when this night is over. I couldn't give him what he needs to stay alive, I simply thought him there's no cause to. Maybe I should be sorry. But I guess, he would have found out without me too.


End file.
